My shifting had gotten so bad that I dropped the chain twice going from big to small ring and shifting in the rear was crunchy and sloppy. It still performed better than a lot of bikes that come into the shop for repairs, but it was time. Since I have been saying for the better part of almost two years that my next set of chainrings was going to be from Praxis Works, I made sure I ordered myself a set.
A customer of ours recently got a set of WickWerks chainrings for his cross bike with a Shimano CX70 front derailleur and 2012 Red shifters and it's the best front shifting I've ever experienced on a bike, period. So good that I want a set for my CX bike right now. With that in mind I was hoping to have the exact same performance from the Praxis Works rings, and it just isn't the same. I am going to wait until the cables are broken in, everything sets and I readjust tension before I make any final judgements. I will say that shifting with the new rings is an improvement over the Red/Force rings I was using, even when they were new. I may switch to a 2012 Red FD in the future to see if I can get better performance if this set up isn't ideal.
I think I mentioned before that 90% of the shifting woes I had went away when I got ride of my SRAM chain and went with an Ultegra 6600 chain. Praxis Works suggests you use either a Shimano, Campy or KMC chain with their rings so I grabbed a 7801 Dura-Ace chain while I was at it. Why 7801 and not 7901? Because I didn't want to deal with a directional chain. And it was cheaper.
Lastly, I was up in the air on if I wanted to get a new Power Dome Red cassette, old red cassette or just stick with the PG-1070 cassettes I've been using since I started riding. While I could have gotten a new Red cassette for a really good deal I decided to stick with the 1070. Price and the fact that I plan on using the PowerTap wheels as training wheels when I get my new wheels were the biggest factors. The new wheels will without question have the new Red 10sp cassette on there, but for now I made the switch from an 11-28T to an 11-26T because I hadn't used my 28T cog in almost a year and so I've basically had 9sp Force. I spent all of my time climbing in the 23 and 25T on the 11-28T so now I'll have a little more on the low end while still having the 23T.
The shop didn't have any more blue Roubaix tape so I ordered some. It hasn't even been ordered yet so I decided to just use a colour we had on the wall. I thought about white but with the white accents on the bike, the white cable housing and the white saddle, I thought it was too much. Plus, it would have been brown before I finished wrapping it. I'm having a mock argument with my Capo rep on Facebook at the moment about how the saddle and bartape have to match because he's very old school roadie and thinks that is actually a thing.
I almost put pink bartape on because A) I think it will look good with the blue and B) because the Giro is my favourite Grand Tour and it's going on right now. For the record, pink bartape may actually look worse than white bartape when it's dirty. I chickened out at the last minute and went with black. As boring and dark as it is, no one can tell what a shitty job I do when wrapping bars and I'll never, ever look at it and go "wow, that bartape sure does look filthy!" It's just not going to happen.
So there we have it. A new drivetrain, cables and bar tape. I even wiped the frame down so it looks all shiny and new. It's kind of like a new bike at this point. The best part is that the cassette and chainrings shouldn't need to be replaced for another few years given the way I ride, so I can focus my monies on other things. Like the wheels I keep talking about.
I'll report back on the performance of the new chainrings and how I like the new gearing in a few weeks. And for those of you who care, I saved a total of 29g for the drivetrain. I gained it all back by correcting the lengths of my cables so it's a wash.
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